For my book report I read the Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien.

This book is a bit

different than his other writings, as it is a compilation of “Mythopoetic works.”(Wikipedia on
The Silmarillion) written by Tolkien and published by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1997.

Tolkien as you may know served in the first world war and witnessed the second, and
experienced a lot of traumatic experiences in the former. Much of his writings are
expressions in some way of the feelings, thoughts, and experiences he had in the
trenches of northern France. He channeled this into creating what many consider to be
the greatest fantasy universe ever conceived to date, and impressively
one of the first.

When hearing his name the first thing that you think of is probably The Hobbit or
The Lord of the Rings, but he wrote, much, much, more. What we see in the Lord of The
Rings and the Hobbit is a minute fraction of a fraction of all the history and story of this
universe (Named Arda). The Silmarillion goes into the deep past of Arda and really
shakes your view of the universe if you only know his common writings. In the beginning
of time the creator god Eru Illuvitar created spirits out of his mind, each of which had
different interests and creative vision. The first and by miles the most powerful of these
sports was Melkor. He grew impatient while waiting for the Song of Creation to begin
and began to wander the timeless void in search of the way to create life, but in doing
this it changed him. He began to have differentiating thoughts from all the other spirits,
and began wishing to rule his own world and have his own creations, angry that Eru had
put no thought to filling the timeless void with life. When the song of creation began
Melkor wove his own thoughts and themes into the melody. This would be the cause of
all evil in the entirety of the universe of arda. Once the Song was finished the world was
made and the most wise and powerful spirits went to the newly created world (Arda).
Melkor was among them and he began to corrupt and destroy what others made, angry
that he was not their king, he converted many lesser spirits to his side including, wait for
it, Sauron. This would set into motion every event that would happen in this entire
universe. And as for a resolution, there never really is one. Melkor by then called
Morgoth was defeated finally and banished out of the world at the end of the first age,
which was a huge victory, but his servants (Most notably Sauron) and corruption
remained, forever instilled in the fabric of the universe, someone will always try to
dominate all in this universe, each one an echo of the great evil banished beyond the
world.

This book very firmly falls into the fantasy genre, magic, mythical creatures, this
is a textbook example of a fantasy universe, an immaculately made one. I cannot
overstate how much I love the storytelling and unending amount of history and stories to
learn about in this universe. And specifically Melkor is the kind of Villain I strive to create
in my own writing, I adore this character. He is powerful beyond imagination, cruel, and
left a permanent legacy on every inch of the universe in this world. I could go on for
hours for everything I love about this book, but 10 pages of me fan-girling is not really a
book report. So in conclusion, I love this book, and I consider it a masterpiece of world
building, even if it is a hard read.

Note: As I mentioned earlier this book as a compilation of other books, made of

specifically and in this order: The Ainulindale, The Valaquenta, The Quenta Silmarillion
(Most of the Book), The Akallabêth, and Of the Rings of Power and The third age. I
focus my report very heavily on the first three for the sake of time and because it is the
most interesting part in my opinion, this was not laziness.
Works Cited:
(1.) - N/A. “The Silmarillion.” Wikipedia.com. Wikipedia.com, Date N/A.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion
(2.) Kaminski, Joseph. “JRR Tolkien and The First World War”. Joseph Kaminski:
History, Sociology and More. https://josephkaminski.org/2016/05/03/j-r-r-tolkien-first-
world-war/
(3.) - Tolkien, JRR (John Ronald Reuel) . The Silmarillion. United Kingdom: George
Allen and Unwin, 1977.
(4.) - N/A. N/A. N/A. “Men of The West”. Youtube.com, 2014-Current,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCItHdUEqlpfvDlcCeyZwH6w/about
(5.) - N/A. N/A. N/A. “GeekZone”. Youtube.com, 2007-Current,
https://www.youtube.com/user/kscerri/about